FORT SAN JACINTO

FORT SAN JACINTO. Fort San Jacinto, formerly a United States coastal-defense fortification on the eastern end of Galveston Island, was constructed by the United States government in 1898. The site was first reserved for public purposes by an act of the Republic of Texas on December 9, 1836. After construction was completed in 1901, Fort San Jacinto, named in honor of the Texan victory over Mexican troops, became the first headquarters for Galveston's harbor defenses. It contained three gun batteries and a direction-finder control station. A seventeen-foot-high seawall fronting the Gulf of Mexico was constructed at the military reservation between 1918 and 1926. The guns of San Jacinto were manned by both the 265th Coast Artillery and the Twentieth Coast Artillery. After the end of World War II the reservation was maintained by the United States Coast Guard as an electronic repair shop. In 1986 it was used by the United States Army Corps of Engineers, who were dredging silt from the Galveston Ship Channel.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Margaret Garcia, "The Three Forts in Galveston County," Junior Historian, January 1968.